


you pulled me out of the dark (and now it's light)

by corleones



Category: Frances Ha
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 13:51:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1094654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corleones/pseuds/corleones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Most of the time, Frances finds herself waiting by the phone, the way girls she used to know did in high school. Frances was never one of those girls back then.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you pulled me out of the dark (and now it's light)

 

 

1.

The first time that they see each other after the wedding is at a Halloween party in Brooklyn. Frances, with a fox mask over her face, is warming her fingers in a borrowed coat and ducking out on to the balcony for a smoke. She is wearing high heels, the only part of her costume that was planned. They are black and orange. The last time she wore them, incidentally, was the wedding. Sophie-across-the-room's wedding, last July. A year and some months ago, not that anybody's counting.

Frances finds a light, a shiny black Zippo pinched from a boy in a red jacket.

She lifts her cigarette at Sophie, the way men in old movies lift a glass when a dame walks through the door.

 

8.

Plainly speaking, they fell apart without the intent of it. There were emails sent on either side, never replied to. They stopped having conversations. Meetings became dumps of information. All the little funny things that used to populate their talk went away: no anecdotes from the subway or quips on night-time televisions. Her impression of talk show hosts lingered in mirrors now.

Most of the time, Frances finds herself waiting by the phone, the way girls she used to know did in high school. Frances was never one of those girls back then.

 

2.

You know, Sophie says, when she steps through the swinging glass doors.

Just _you know_ , as if they see each other every day. Frances cuts her off with the low, breathy expression of her name. _Sophie_. It is a stranger in her mouth. She doesn't know any other Sophies.

You know, she says, they're serving champagne in the other room.

She lifts her glass, the pale half moon of lipstick smudged into the rim. Her eyes without glasses look witchy, bright.

Frances blows smoke rings and blinks at her through the fog.

 

6.

For a wedding present, Frances had filled a box with all of their favourite things from when they lived together. Chopsticks from her favourite Chinese restaurant, little pastries from that Italian bakery two blocks from their house. An old Stephen King paperback that had always belonged to Frances but had little scratched out Wowzers in the margin that were most definitely not hers. She wrapped it in tinfoil, stamped down with tape.

At the last minute, she changed her mind and bought a vase. The box stayed on her kitchen counter for several months until one drunken takeaway sometime around Christmas with Lev anxious to prove his skills with chopsticks and she hacked at it with a pair of old scissors till the tinfoil came apart. The rotting pastries sat under her sink till New Year.

 

3.

What's your costume, she asks, when they run out of cigarettes and the flutes are empty.

Sophie twitches open her coat, pulls half of it aside with a lapel. She is wearing a pale blue leotard, a fluffy skirt.

A dancer, she says, flatly. And then Stop, when Frances giggles.

 

7.

The first time is against the kitchen sink and neither of them are drunk, only this new loneliness between them sparked off the gesture. Leaning into hug wasn't what it used to be, couldn't be what it used to be and moved brokenly to this space where Sophie's hands hauled her hips up to the counter, of her taking off her glasses with this little smirk and reaching over to put them behind her before swooping down to the open space of her throat, this space of _Jesus fuck_ and _oh please don't stop._

Later, Sophie will kiss the tattoo on her ribs, murmur This is new against the skin like they are old lover.

They are not.

 

4.

When they say goodbye that night, Sophie even kisses her cheek. It is a light airless gesture that means only that they have not yet begun the business of melting through to the past.

Picking up conversations in the middle of each other's words is like riding a bike but the year and a half still hangs there.

Between them, heavy and light.

Frances fills her pockets with candy for the subway ride home, emptying out the bowls of orange and black wrappers and doesn't watch her walk through the party, out the door.

 

10.

Afterwards, in the sunlit throes of the morning after, soap operas buzzing on the television, Sophie trooping down to bring coffee and croissants, she will not feel like a roommate or a lover or a best friend. She is something that shifts in between these things.

Her contacts left in Frances' bathroom, the kiss goodbye flung over one shoulder, the way she texts from the subway about her hangover and the book she's reading.

Frances puts her phone on the table next to her bed and crawls under the covers, trying to ignore the hummingbird of texts.

 

 

5.

She says, it didn't work out.

This is over coffee.

They have never met for coffee before, unless you count the times Sophie poured out a cup for her and left it on their milk-crate tables in the living room while Frances sprawled across the couch and shouted lines from _Bringing Up Baby_ at the screen.

Did Patch cheat on you?

What? No. He's a good guy, Frances.

Then why didn't it work out?

She takes off her glasses and puts them on again, a little sigh emptying the gesture. She does it like she is weary already.

Sometimes people just stop loving each other, Frances.

Her name tagged on at the end makes the sentence feel like a brief lesson. Class dismissed.

 

11.

It had been Sophie who initiated this time. Sophie who sent the first email, who asked Frances for coffee.

The wording of it, the two lines on the page, the I miss you that is louder unsaid. Everything about it feels tentative, brief.

The other day, Frances had found an old cinema ticket in her leather jacket, a special screening of _Funny Face_ that they'd been to in the fall, three years ago.

This is what her friendship with Sophie at the moment feels like that cinema ticket; the clinging, nostalgic slip.

 

6.

On Sophie's birthday the year before, Frances drank boxed wine and ate cupcakes. She did this, not at home, but on a bench in Washington Square Park.

She wore a red sundress and a wide rimmed hat, large sunglasses. She was pretending to be a movie star in hiding even before she was drunk. By midday, she could not feel her legs. The walk home was wine-fast. The streets names went blurry and bright. She wanted to peer into windows to see if she could see them, Sophie and Patch with their birthday for two. This was what Sophie had send when Frances had texted her.

_Thanks, just a quiet one this year w/ Patch xx_

Frances sprints instead. She hops, enjoys the tight fluidity of her leg muscles. In shop windows, her body looks like art in motion.

A _pas de chat_ on the top of her road.

 

12.

On New Year's Day, they eat brunch at a place near Sophie's new apartment.

They let eggs and coffee fill the space between them. There are newspapers at the table, a set of dessert menus and books. _Hey Jude_ croons the overhead radio.

Totally inappropriate winter music, Frances says, scrunching her nose. Hey Jude is a summer song.

Sophie hums, presses the tip of her pen thoughtfully against the crossword.

I've always liked The Beatles, she says.

Hey, Sophie, Frances says.

Yeah?

Tell me the story of us.

This time she makes it up as she goes along.

Beneath the table, Frances hooks a foot around her ankle.  


End file.
